Posthaste Facts on the Environment #17

Bureaucrats Pressure Elderly Widow to Tear Down Her Home

Produced 1996

Elderly widows beware! Bureaucrats may force you to tear down your
home. Just ask Gladys Stanton of New Albany, Indiana.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources is forcing Mrs. Gladys Stanton,
64, to tear down her home. State bureaucrats claim that her spouse -- recently
deceased after suffering a massive heart attack -- did not obtain the proper
permit to expand their home, which lies on a flood plain.

But Mrs. Stanton defends her late husband, Richard, as an honest man. She
claims that when her husband originally inquired about a permit an official
told him that approval wasn't necessary and that the government routinely "turns
their backs on weekend carpenter projects." The expansion consisted of
replacing a single-width trailer with a larger one and providing a few
additional improvements to the property.

Gladys is being pressured to demolish or remove the home from her property.
"I get $1000 a month," she said. "To move is $25,000. I don't
have that. I don't want to leave. I have no where to go."

Understandably, Mrs. Stanton is heartbroken. Not only has she lost her
husband during this bureaucratic nightmare, but the government is trying to
take away the family home.

Source: Mrs. Gladys Stanton and The Courier-Journal, December 27,
1995